Sports
Ultimate frisbee uses fall season to acclimate first-year players
By Yoshi Hill ’16
October 8, 2015
During the final weekend of September, both Hamilton Ultimate Frisbee teams ventured to Buffalo to compete in the annual Theodore Seuss Geisel Memorial Ultimate Tournament hosted by SUNY Buffalo. After the two days of competition, the teams emerged more cohesive, having continued to expose first-years to game action as the process of optimizing their lineups continued. The fall season functions as more of a developmental phase, helping prepare the team for the important tourneys taking place in the spring.
The women’s team, dubbed the Hot Sauce’Hers, tallied four victories in their seven games, which was good for fifth place among a challenging pool of opponents. Reflecting on the weekend, Sam Mengual ’16 said, “Our expectations for this tournament were to teach our newer players what level of play is expected… Our new women far exceeded our expectations this weekend and have already improved since the beginning of the year.”
In spite of several tough losses to the tourney hosts and SUNY Binghamton, the Hot Sauce’Hers demonstrated impressive teamwork and skill in dominant displays against SUNY Brockport, which ended in an 11-3 victory, and SUNY Fredonia, in which Hamilton did not concede a single point.
At the beginning of this acclimation process, there were a few bumps, but the captains were confident that these challenges would prove to be helpful in the long run. This year, a large number of players have joined the team and many of them look capable of contributing in a significant way.
The men’s team employed a novel approach to expose its newcomers to collegiate-level ultimate. Captains Brian Jung ’16 and Nicholas Lucchesi ’16 decided against forming A and B teams, with the A team composed of its best players. Instead, they formed two teams with a balanced mix of experience and skill so that the newer players would be more involved.
This method had immediate dividends as both teams, Hamilton X and Hamilton Y, managed to win more than half of their games. Hamilton X triumphed 13-12 in a nail-biter against Buffalo, which Jung described as “exceptionally fun to play. We traded points for the whole game until the very end when we stepped up the intensity to tie the game.” In the end, it was a first-year who proved the difference, when Tyler Spector ’19 scored the final decisive point.
Optimistic after the results of the weekend, Lucchesi added, “We thought it was advantageous to sacrifice short-term success in favor of long-term growth. We encouraged the rookies to learn from their mistakes on the field, rather than concern themselves with the scoreboard.” In this pressure-free environment, the first-years distinguished themselves, impressing the captains and demonstrating that they will be able to replace the talent of last year’s seniors. Jung concluded, “As a group, this year’s rookies have impressed me more than any other class year. Both in class size and raw athleticism, they bring a lot to the table.”